No Mark upon Her

mean Freddie, you can’t be serious. He would never have harmed Becca. He adored her.”

It was Doug’s turn to shrug. He wondered if Jachym’s disbelief were a bit manufactured. Surely it must have occurred to him that Freddie would be a suspect. “Human nature, as you said,” he answered. “Sometimes there’s a fine line between love and hate. No one else can be sure how they really got on.”

“I knew them,” said Milo, his jaw set in an obstinate line. “And I don’t believe it.”

Doug conceded for the moment. “Then have you any idea who might have wanted Becca Meredith dead?”

“No.” Milo shook his head. “I can’t imagine. Do you know—how did she—”

“That’s still under investigation. As is last night’s attack on one of the members of the search and rescue team that found her body.”

“What?” If Milo had not been surprised that they’d determined Becca’s death a homicide, he seemed genuinely shocked at this. “What sort of attack? On whom?”

“His name is Kieran Connolly. He and his partner were the team at the weir. Someone tried to burn down his boatshed last night—with him in it. Do you know him?”

Milo thought for a moment. “Quiet guy? Repairs boats? I’ve talked to him a few times. He’s done work for some of the crew as well as the members. Does a good job,” he added approvingly. “Is he all right?”

“I think so, yes. Were you aware that Connolly had a relationship with Becca Meredith?”

“A relationship? What do you mean by a relationship?” Milo looked disconcerted.

“What people usually mean, Mr. Jachym. They were sleeping together.”

Milo frowned, considering. “I did see them out on the river together often enough, during the summer,” he said slowly. “But they were both single scullers, and it never occurred to me that there was anything more to it. Are you certain? Did Freddie—” He stopped, and Doug saw by the sudden wariness in his eyes where the thought had taken him.

“Did Freddie know?” Doug finished for him. “If he had, would he have been jealous?”

“I— No. I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Milo looked into his mug as if the sludge at the bottom might yield an answer. “Becca and Freddie—they were comfortable together. Sometimes they seemed more like siblings. And it was Freddie, after all, who strayed from the marital fold, not Becca.”

“But she left him?”

“After that, yes. Or maybe I should say, after them.”

“Freddie had more than one affair?”

“Freddie can’t help being charming,” Milo said, with an indulgence that made Doug wonder if everyone gave Freddie Atterton free passes for bad behavior. “And to be fair,” Milo went on, “with her job, Becca hadn’t much time for him.”

“What about the rowing? She must have been very focused on that, as well.”

“Not until this last year. I thought she’d given it up for good, to tell you the truth, although she kept her membership here for social reasons. Then, in the spring, she bought a boat. But she was secretive about her training. She kept the shell here, but she didn’t go out with the crew. Oh, she rowed the occasional piece on the weekend, but I could see she was holding back, coasting. I think, now, that she was just checking out the competition.”

“So when did you decide she was serious?” Doug asked.

“Couple of weeks ago.” Milo looked out at the view over the river, and Doug thought that he was uncomfortable, even a little embarrassed. “I timed her.”

“Without her knowledge?”

“It’s not illegal, Sergeant,” said Milo with a hint of sharpness. He seemed to have recovered his composure quickly enough. “It was just a small conspiracy with one of the rowers. This was after one of the boys let slip she’d bribed a few of them to help her move weights and an erg into the cottage. I was . . . curious. It is my job, after all, to see what my crew is up against.”

“And?”

“She was better.” He met Doug’s eyes again.

“Would she have rowed for you?”

“Maybe. But Becca was never exactly a team player. And the other women wouldn’t have been happy with her coming in and riding roughshod over their positions.”

“Tricky, then,” Doug said.

“Not really. If Becca had wanted to race on her own, and had the means to do it, she wouldn’t have worried about hurting anyone’s feelings, including mine.”

“Disappointing for you, after all the work you’ve put in with your own crew,” suggested Doug, in his best attempt at Kincaid-style casualness.

“What?” Milo gave a bark of laughter. “You think I might have killed Becca to advance the chances of my own team?” When Doug merely looked blandly noncommittal, Milo’s amusement turned to irritation. “That’s ludicrous. I have a couple of good possibilities for the single scull. Not topflight, but we’ll see. And if not, there will be others.”

“Then you won’t mind telling me where you were on Monday evening,” said Doug.

“Here, of course. I was just doing my evening lockup when I saw Becca taking out the Filippi. After we spoke, I came back to the gym to oversee the evening workout. Then I ate supper with the crew.”

Doug didn’t see any conceivable way Milo could have spoken to Becca as she left Leander, then made his way to a hiding spot on the far side of the river by the time Becca had rowed round Temple Island and started back upstream. Of course, that was assuming Milo was telling the truth about speaking to Becca, as well as about the time he saw her leave Leander.

But Doug doubted that Milo would lie about his movements when his schedule was so easily verifiable. And if Kieran Connolly’s story bore out, the man on the other side of the river had been lying in wait for two evenings just when Milo would have had coaching duties.

He gave the idea up as a bad prospect for the moment and moved on to Kieran. “Last night, Mr. Jachym, do you know if any singles were taken out, or might have been missing, around eight o’clock?”

“A single? Why?”

“Kieran Connolly’s boatshed is on the island across from the Rowing Museum. So unless his attacker just happened to live there, too, I suspect he used a boat. And why not a racing shell?”

“True enough,” Milo agreed. “Well, if it was a boat, it didn’t come from Leander. There are only a few singles racked in the yard, and we’ve all been keeping a close eye on things here.” The look he gave Doug was pitying. “But, Sergeant, if you’re trying to account for every single scull along this stretch of the Thames, I wish you the best of luck.”

Kincaid stood in New Street, waiting for Cullen in front of the Malthouse, a complex of upscale renovated flats in part of the old Brakspear Brewery. On the other side of the street, the Hotel du Vin occupied another of the brewery’s buildings, and Kincaid thought he could summon more enthusiasm for a nice lunch in the hotel bar than for the upcoming interview.

The cards were certainly stacking against Freddie Atterton. Kincaid had given a brief and noncommittal report to the press gathered at Henley Police Station. Then he’d rung Chief Superintendent Childs, who had jumped on the news of Becca Meredith’s life insurance policy with all the glee of a terrier after a rat. For Childs the demonstration of such enthusiasm consisted of a slight raising of his voice, accompanied, Kincaid imagined, by a slight but corresponding rise of the brows.

He was just as glad not to be there to see it.

Ending the conversation on a sour note, he reluctantly assured his guv’nor that he would pull out all the stops to establish whether or not Freddie Atterton had an alibi for the time in question.

Then, just as he rang off, DC Imogen Bell came in to tell him that the SOCOs had found a partial footprint at the spot that Kieran had indicated on the riverbank, as well as fibers caught on a twig and evidence of disturbance at the water’s edge. They were still engaged in a fingertip search of the area.

So it looked as though Kieran Connolly had been right about the spot where Becca had been killed, and Childs would be jubilant if either footprint or fiber could be tied to Atterton.

But while Kincaid knew his remit was to catch Becca Meredith’s killer, he felt he was being pushed in